So True of Aim With His Marshmallow Laser

[lil_hulk]

Jay had less of his senior year in front of him than he thought. He was behind on his senior year job shadowing. Most of his fellow students on the rez had access to all the Keewazi technology businesses and labs to do theirs in. He was in New York City and had fewer options.

He knew he could have gone to the Future Foundation and gotten credit for it. However, him showing up at Pier 4 would have been a signal for Mary to prank him somehow. Rather than deal having to redo somethings due a prankster shapeshifter, Jay got some suggestions from his school for some science-based businesses in NYC that he could get credit for.

Jay currently stood outside a nondescript building housing several businesses that could fit his science job shadowing requirement. He checked the slip of paper once more to make sure he had the right address. If he had not been specifically looking for this building, he doubted he would have even noticed it.

Shrugging to himself, he headed toward the front doors. He had an appointment with one of the businesses inside. He was dressed in a light jacket over a button-down shirt, his cleanest pair of jeans, and his pair of green Chuck Taylor All Stars on his feet. Not very science-y, but comfortable to him.

Comments

[lena_essex]

Minio... labratory assistants appeared with a gurney that they strapped Jay onto, then took him further down via a hidden elevator. The room they wheeled him into looked like an unholy amalgamation of a particle physics lab and a rave club from the '90s, with softly glowing green tubes running all along the ceiling. They moved Jay from the gurney, taking his clothes, and draping a sheet over his body, then placed him onto something that slightly resembled an MRI table.

The burly assistants left, and the room was quiet, but not empty. Lena stood at Jay's feet, eyeing him curiously.

"Dr. Green says you're a Hulk..."

She reached out and gently squeezed his big toe.

[lil_hulk]

This was one of those moments when Jay wished he could control his ability to Hulk out. He would have more defenses that way. Along with the ability to tear this place apart.

He looked down the table at the redhead squeezing his toe. He blinked in anger. That was the best he could do.

[lena_essex]

"I've never met a Hulk before. Daddy says you're all more trouble than you're worth, and not very genetically interesting."

Lena giggled, and stroked the inside of Jay's ankle, petting it like it was a kitten.

"Oh, you're angry. That's bad for a Hulk, isn't it? Angry and afraid, too. I can feel it." She shivered slightly, and the tip of her tongue darted out across her lips.

"Don't be scared, ducky. Dr. Green wants you kept alive. He was so happy when he called me on the phone. Why, I didn't think he could be happy, cooped up in that musty old office of his, with the lady in the tube." She glanced up at the metal cylinder above and behind Jay. "Oh, not that kind of tube. Hers is glass, and he puts flowers around the base. You've got a shiny metal one."

[lil_hulk]

Jay closed his eyes and tried to sum up being a Hulk somehow. He was overflowing with negative emotions at the moment. Why wasn't it triggering?

Maybe Hulks don't like to be at a beck and call.

Which did not explain his Mom's ease with her Hulk side. He opened his eyes at the mention of the creepy dead woman in the box. He looked up at that tube and started getting a little claustrophobic.

[lena_essex]

"I know why. But I can't tell you." Lena giggled. "What, you didn't know that I could hear you? I can. I can do lots of things."

She walked closer to the head of the gurney, running her nails along Jay's leg as she went. "Your Mummy's a Hulk too? What is that like? I don't have a mum, not really. Daddy made me all by himself."

"Oh, and the lady isn't dead. Not quite. If she were, there wouldn't be any point to all this, now would there?" She laid her hand on Jay's forehead. "Don't be scared. Don't be. Is there something I can do for you?"

[lil_hulk]

Jay's eyes widened at his thoughts being read. He tried to have a coherent thought beyond why was she doing that to him. He needed to focus. She was making him have seven thoughts at once. He needed to not think about Mom and how she was half a continent too far away to save him this time.

Let me go. That would be a swell thing to do for me.

He fought to move an arm, a leg, or even just roll off the gurney, but Jay achieved only stillness.

[lena_essex]

I can't do that. Would you like something else, ducks? An ice lolly? Sex? I can do that for you.

Lena giggled.

Would you like your Mummy? I can be her. If you think of her hard enough.

[lil_hulk]

Jay blinked and then screwed his eyes shut as tight as he possibly could. Maybe he could find that calm, quiet place everybody was supposed to have inside them. A space to retreat to. Though being a Hulk made finding a calm, quiet spot near impossible.

Leave me alone. Just leave me alone.

[lena_essex]

"You're going to hurt my feelings, ducky."

Lena laid her hand on his chest, then reached in to his mind, pulling images and voices out.

"I can be anyone you want." Her image wavered, and then Jay's mother was standing there.

"Anyone."

She-Hulk turned into Marcus.

"Anyone."

And now, into May.

"Anyone."

Lena operated the controls of the table with her telekinesis, and Jay slowly slid into the tube. Lights came on, and the machinery surrounding it began to hum. Then she reached into his brain, and jabbed at the area where memories were stored.

[lil_hulk]

He should have opened his eyes when she put her hand on his chest. The warm contact he hadn't expected made him look. He knew she was none of the people she turned into. It hurt to not be able to call any of them to for help.

Particularly the last one.

He didn't have to dwell on that long as he slid into the metal tube of doom. He looked around as things came to electronic life. Jay didn't have mental defenses, so Lena would find it easy to get at his memories.

[lena_essex]

Lena sat, crosslegged, on the floor in a room that was the astral representation of Jay's amygdala, the area of his brain where memories with a strong emotional connection were stored. In front of her was a cardboard box full of Polaroid photographs. She pulled them out one by one, glanced at them, then tossed them over her shoulder, until she found one that looked interesting to her. Dr. Green told her to start out easy, and subtle.

In Jay's mind he saw a lush, green hillside sprinkled with wildflowers. Nearby was a softly bubbling stream. He was sitting on a plaid picnic blanket spread with food, and across the blanket from him sat May. She smiled, and handed him a plate loaded with fried chicken and potato salad.

[lil_hulk]

That he was suddenly not in the cold, metal tube of doom surprised Jay. Until he looked around. He had found his quiet spot. It unsurprisingly had May in it.

He took the plate with a slight smile. This wasn't real, but he could enjoy it. It would make whatever was happening to him outside his mind easier to take later.

"Nice and quiet here, huh?" Did figments of his coping mechanisms talk back?

[lena_essex]

"It's beautiful here."

"May" leaned back on her hands and stretched her legs out across the blanket.

"I could stay here forever. Could have stayed."

A spider crawled out of the grass, and across the blanket.

[lil_hulk]

Well, that answered that for him. He watched May lean back and stretch. He missed this. The quiet moments.

"No, you couldn't. You deserved bet..."

His brow furrowed as he watched the spider. It was more interesting to him than finishing a thought he'd had a million times since they broke up. He watched the spider. His thumb nudged the chicken a little on his plate.

[lena_essex]

"I could have. Still could, if you wanted."

She closed her eyes and arched her back, turning her face to the sun.

The spider stopped, and seemed to draw back. Its front legs waved.

[lil_hulk]

Jay wasn't sure what the spider was doing. It wasn't his animal, so he wasn't going to give it too much thought. He looked back at May.

If May had been more endowed like most superheroines, that pose might have been a bit more seductive. As it was, Jay found it cute if not a possible way to get rid of a pain in her back. He set his plate of food aside.

"What I want won't help how things need to be. You're a smart girl, you've got a better path in front of you now." Well, this sort of therapy was probably miles better than whatever Dr. Green was doing with him.

[lena_essex]

"Wanting is everything."

"May" leaned over Jay and began to kiss him. The little spider reared up and made a hissing noise, legs waving frantically now.

"Damnable thing." She reached over and crushed it with her palm.

[lil_hulk]

Jay probably enjoyed that kiss more than should have. That was one of the reasons he thought the kiss didn't feel right. Those lips... didn't feel like May's.

He watched her squish the spider and pulled back. "I... what's going on here? And did your boobs just get bigger?"

[lena_essex]

"May" looked down at her own chest. She appeared a little surprised.

The landscape morphed, becoming flatter. The grass disappeared, sucked into the dry, reddish dirt. There was a highway a few hundred feet away. Off in the distance, there was the sound of an engine, and an approaching cloud of dust. "May" jumped up in excitement.

"They're here! Let's go for a ride!"

She grabbed Jay's hand, to pull him down the low hill and towards the road.

[lil_hulk]

Jay would notice chest size. He's the son of a woman who gets constant horndog comments about hers. The real May had the perfect body-type for him. Except...

... he was pulled to his feet. "Who's here?"

Jay didn't understand how anyone else would be in his safe place. And why his safe place was turning into the rez. He followed May because he wasn't sure what else could he do against a figment of his imagination.

[lena_essex]

"May" just grinned and ran faster, pulling away from Jay. At the base of the hill, a not-very new car pulled up, the exterior coated with dust. The windows facing Jay rolled down, and he could see Marcus behind the wheel, with Bruce riding shotgun. "May" whooped with delight, and jumped in to the back seat through the window.

[ngm_villains]

In the exam room, tubes snaked off of the metal cylinder that held Jay, each one pulsing with green light.

Dr Green stood nearby, monitoring a bank of panels and controls. A faint smile quirked the corner of his mouth. He had a theory, that was proving true, that the energy released to trigger the transformation in a gamma irradiated individual who had been effected strongly enough, could be harvested directly. Harvested, and used to heal his Lenore.

The problem was, Hulks weren't known for being cooperative, especially not in the middle of a change. And that's where his old associate's lovely... and telepathic daughter came in.

[lil_hulk]

May had an easier time pulling away as Jay slowed to a thoughtful trot. He didn't feel in danger, but there was a mounting sense of something. Something familiar tickling the back of his brain.
He peered into the car as he came down the hill.

His friends. They had his back, right?

"What the hell, safety brain? Why would Marcus get rid of his Jeep for that... hunk... of... shit."

[lena_essex]

The car took off before Jay could join his friends inside. They laughed and called out to him as the car sped away. It went a few hundred feet, then spun around in the dirt, heading back.

Outside, a smile crept across Lena's face...

[ngm_villains]

...but Dr. Green frowned slightly, checking his readings.

"I need a higher concentration, at least for this first run. You can play with him as much as you like later, my dear."